New Delhi, August 02: “We have received two separate inputs from two Mumbai-based businessmen, who told us that Sarabjot had taken money to settle land deals for them. We are in the process of getting more details in these cases,” said a CBI source.
Meanwhile, CBI officers on Saturday conducted searches at two of the offices of one of the arrested persons, Dhaunk Singh, which included a jewellery shop and a computer shop in Khetwadi area. CBI officials had earlier raided Dhaunk Singh’s Dhanlaxmi Collections garment shop and caught him and his associate Madan Singh with the bribe money.
Buta Singh, however, has continued to maintain that his son was “by all means innocent” even as the CBI claimed that Sarabjot aka Sweety had confessed to taking a bribe and that Singh, in fact, knew about the transaction. The veteran politician alleged that the confession could have been extracted by coercion. “He (Sarabjot) must have made it (the confession) under pressure,” Singh said.
Though the BJP has demanded Singh’s resignation from the post of NCSC chairman, a defiant Singh refused to resign from his post. “Why should I resign? I have done no wrong. I am the chairperson of a constitutional forum and am capable. I will not resign on such a controversy,” he said.
The CBI, however, is likely to question Buta Singh in the case. “Either Buta Singh was aware that his son was involved in such illegal activity, or Sarabjot was using his father’s clout. We want to clear this and hence we might soon question Buta Singh in this regard,” said a CBI official, requesting anonymity. Buta Singh said that he was ready to face CBI’s questioning provided the investigation agency “followed the right procedures.”
Though Singh maintained that the case was a “political conspiracy to malign him and his family and end his political career”, he refused to point fingers at any one in particular. He also refused to comment on why the Congress party, with which he has had a long association through his five-decade long political innings, was not backing him on the current imbroglio. “I don’t need anyone’s support, I am fully capable of countering these allegations by myself,” he said.
Singh had been expelled from the active membership of the Congress party after his decision to contest the 15th Lok Sabha polls as an independent candidate from Jalore, Rajasthan. He eventually lost the election and has since been trying to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi “to explain the circumstances” under which he contested the polls.
–Agencies–